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11 Comments → “Why is this night different…”

MarshallDog

12 years ago

It’s amazing how some people *cough* Meterparel *cough* are still bringing up the club’s failure of adding Bobby Abreau last trade deadline. And this year, it’s even more bizarre that certain fans *cough* Ordway *cough* are willing to part with only Kason Gabbard or Jon Lester to get a Jermaine Dye. What ever happened to pitching pitching pitching? I don’t know. Apparently, Kason Gabbard doesn’t count because he’s not a prospect, a proven major leauger, or Bronson Arroyo. Go figure.

Getting Jermaine Dye would be a decent boost, and if the cost is Wily Mo and a guy like Justin Masterson, I’d probably do it. As much as I like Pena, he’s not worth much to this club on the bench. And prospects are nice, but losing a lower level one for playoff run insurance is a good trade-off. I’d hesitate at giving up Manny Delcarman, because I know he can pitch at this level, and they can still keep him a few more years. I’d need more back than a three-month rental.

The media and talk show circuit in Boston is pathetic. They live for today without ever thinking about what lies ahead. They will also trash a guy one day then fluff him two months later.

The Sox have holes and let’s not kid ourselves about how good they are. This is a team that is built for OBP, not slugging and unless you have a roster full of guys who run like Crisp and Lugo that’s not a formula for success. Tampa sucks and yet they managed to win one game late and took the other game into extra innngs because they have guys who can hit home runs. Back in 2003-2005 you never felt that the Sox were really out of it because they could score runs.

Dave Madagan has presided over Lugo, Drew and Ortiz having significantly down years and Wily Mo Pena has gone backwards as well. They fired Ron Jackson who was the hitting coach when this team was scoring over 900 runs a year? Last year was a down year but when you think about the injuries and erosion in hitting talent I could see why the offense would decline.

Our pitching is good but when you are pitching Wakefield, Gabbard and Lester in the same week that’s scary.

The bench is terrible. Henske, Cora, Mirasmelly and Pena simply don’t produce at the plate with any consistency. Henske and Pena might do better with regular time but the other two won’t. However, thanks to Theo’s mismanagement we have Drew making $14 million that’s hard to have sitting on the bench and are you going to play Pena and Henske over Crisp and Manny?

The Sox charge way too much money to have this many holes on the club. Theo and Co have had enough time to get from under bad deals from the last regime so this is all their doing. This team has played .500 ball the past few months and with good reason.

Pitching talent is coming up through the ranks but you still need guys who can hit.

rln2433-
It’s Hinske, not Henske. And Magadan, not Madagan.
Best record in baseball. Take a few steps back from the ledge. I

rln2433-
It’s Hinske, not Henske. And Magadan, not Madagan.
Best record in baseball. Take a few steps back from the ledge.
I think itâ€šÃ„Ã´s clear that Ortizâ€šÃ„Ã´ power slump has something to do with his bum knee. Drew and Lugo have had huge slumps, but this is hardly the fault of the hitting coach. Good hitters sometimes have terrible slumps (remember Jeter a few years ago when he was hitting .200 for most of the first half?) and itâ€šÃ„Ã´s usually a mental thing that they simply have to get free of. Both guys could still pan out, not only this year but in the long run. In a year or two Drewâ€šÃ„Ã´s salary isnâ€šÃ„Ã´t going to seem anomalous. (Anyone still lamenting not having Johnny Damon patrolling center, er, I mean, left field at $13 million per year? I didnâ€šÃ„Ã´t think so.) Obviously the Sox need another bat in light of Drewâ€šÃ„Ã´s struggles and as insurance for Papi, hence the interest in Jermaine Dye. Hinske has had some big momentsâ€šÃ„Ã¬â€šÃ„Ã¬about all you can ask from a part-timerâ€šÃ„Ã¬â€šÃ„Ã¬and he can play four positions competently. When the rosters expand the bench will be fine thanks to Ellsbury and others. And why talk complain that you canâ€šÃ„Ã´t play Pena and Hinske over Manny and Crisp, when the whole idea is that theyâ€šÃ„Ã´re not supposed to play most of the time?
This is a good team. Imperfect? Sure. But I think some of the â€šÃ„Ãºholesâ€šÃ„Ã¹ weâ€šÃ„Ã´re worrying about are mainly issues of underperformance (Drew, Lugo in June, Ortizâ€šÃ„Ã´ power numbers) and some bad luck.

Your analysis of the Red Sox has more holes than the team currently does.

Yes Tampa Bay won one out of three games against the Sox over the weekend, but they lost the other two because the Sox have better pitching. Even in the short term of this series, the Sox had a .666 winning percentage. More importantly, in the long run the Sox are one of the best teams in baseball while the D-Rays are among the very worst. Clearly their method of building a team is not working, whether they hit home runs or not.

Maybe guys like Lugo, Ortiz, and Drew are having bad offensive seasons (nevermind that Ortiz probably needs knee surgery and Drew is playing in the AL for the first time in his life). But what about guys like Youkilis, Lowell, and Pedroia? How about the resurgance of Manny, Coco and Lugo in the last month? Dave Madagan (sic) has nothing to do with any of that? Why doesn’t a hitting coach ever get credit for doing something right?

Why are Wakefield, Lester, and Gabbard scary? Is it their combined 4.38 ERA? Is it the fact that they allow about 1.3 baserunners per inning? Or maybe their combined record of 17-9 (all nine losses by Wakefield)? My guess is it’s mostly that nobody has ever trusted Wakefield in spite of his career stats, Gabbard doesn’t throw hard so he must suck, and Lester hasn’t proven himself on the big stage. And since you didn’t mention them, Beckett and Matsuzaka must really suck.

Henske (sic), Cora, and Mirabelli may suck. Except Hinske is a valuable extra lefty bat with some power and provides a backup for both Lowell and Youkilis. And Cora can play shortstop, second base and third in a pinch, can run, can bunt, and is one of the smartest players in the game and usually does what it takes to win. And Mirabelli only makes Wakefield more confident and able to throw his knuckleball effectively, and is a very good defensive catcher. And Pena… okay, I’ll give you Pena. The point is that looking at a team’s bench to find holes is like looking at an outfield to find grass.

So the Sox charge too much money? Here’s a solution… stop paying for tickets if you don’t like the price. There are thousands of other people waiting to buy tickets, so give them a chance. This team played a stretch of .500 ball just like every other team in the majors does at one point or another. Other than that, they are in first place in the AL East by eight games, and have the best record in all of baseball.

You are in a position of negativity that intrigues me. I have to admit that I have been close to that point myself at times this year. Such as after they went 3 and 5 in the first 8 games of the recent homestand against Texas, KC & Chicago, on top of the brutal sweeep in Detroit. I think our offence has looked pretty dismal at times, especially the late-game offence. But here we are still with the best record, some of the guys who were slumping have turned it around and I feel pretty good about this team again.

I reaaly think you’re being unfair to the management that put this team together. I have been puzzled by some things, like why they fired Ron Jackson. And some of the deals have looked bad at times, no question. But remember that guys like Crisp, Lugo and Drew came into Boston having put up some good numbers in other places, and when you see the way Crisp is playing now you can understand why they wanted him. As for the bench, these guys have made some contributions this year. I don’t think any team in baseball would scare you if they sat out half their regulars. Good everyday players are so expensive you don’t have much money to spend on good subs.

Let’s be thankful for having an ownership/management group that genuinely wants to win championships and who as a group possess the money, smarts and stones to do it. They proved that by the way they went after Dice-K. They proved it again today-they are willing to go that extra step to try to win it all. They landed Gagne and gave a good shot at landing Dye. I feel pretty lucky to be a Sox fan now, and up until Henry & Theo came to town I rarely felt that way.

Google Sucks. I decided to do a quick check on the names and those spellings came up. I’ll know better next time.

The best record in baseball argument doesn’t water any longer. They have been a .500 team the past few months and with good reason.

I saw Ortiz hit 2 homers last night so let’s not say that his power problems are completely his knee. He has developed a really bad habit of check swinging and giving up strikes and did you see him get blown away by high 80MPH heat against Tampa? Do you see him pulling off pitches? He won’t throw his current hitting coach under the bus but he has gone on record as saying he misses Jackson. Given the results they produced over a 4 year period I think there is something to look at there. Lugo’s was a slump of epic proportions. And while I did see games where he was hitting 375 foot line drives that were caught, there were a lot of games where he just looked BAD. Drew is a whole other problem though. His OBP is about the same as his slug % and there are a lot of at bats where he looks clueless. How many times does he swing at pitches low and outside while watching strike 3 right down the pipe or middle in? You want to defend the signing then say they need another bat for protection without really addressing the problem.

Bottom line is that this is not a championship team. Theo and company have assembled a roster that has far too many singles hitters and guys that either don’t protect the plate on 2 strike counts or who cannot generate a hit unless they get the perfect pitch. In case you hadn’t noticed the wankees have upped their game considerably and will likely take the Sox by the time Sept. 1st rolls around.

We will both agree that the Sox have better pitching and if Tampa had the ability to keep players rather than trade them away they would be a lot better off. My point was that the Sox are an offensively challenged team that has a hard time generating instant offense. For the Sox it means a single, a walk, then maybe another single and a sac fly to get some runs.

Deep benches are what keep good teams winning. Your regulars don’t play 162 games a year even when healthy but when your back up catcher is below the Mendoza Line, your back up infielder has done nothing in the past 2.5 months and your other back ups produce like Hinske and Wily Mo Cerrano have it makes a huge difference. Depth is one of the things that the GM and his crew are responsible for. They are also responsible for signing over priced free agents that don’t produce and hitting coaches that preside over down years for a bunch of guys,

“The best record in baseball argument doesnâ€šÃ„Ã´t [hold] water any longer.”

I’m not sure what better indicator there is of a team’s success or failure than its own won-less record. If the team’s active roster were radically different as of August 1 than it was on June 1, then you might have a point about the Sox record being misleading. But it’s not, and you don’t.

It’s likely that the Yankees will overtake the Sox by September 1? Based on what? Did Murray Chass say so?

I don’t care what happened in April and May. What I am concerned about is the trend and while the Sox owned the 1st 1/3rd of the season the Yankees have outperformed them since. Yankees are getting Hughes back, they are getting Giambi back, they dumped Procter and will be getting some of their prospects into the pen much like the Sox did with Papelbon. The Yanks can outslug the Sox pretty much any day of the week. Yankees September looks a lot easier than what the Red Sox have to deal with especially since the Sox finish up with Oakland and the Twinkees.

The Sox needed to upgrade themselves offensively and didn’t. The Dye deal was a bit over the top but they couldn’t have gotten Piazza or another bat? Maybe someone who could get this team fired up a bit?

No team is perfect but you have to look at where you are weak and address the problems. Having good bench players can keep a team fresh and be a good hedge against slumps and injuries. The 2004 team was an offensive juggernaut. Mirabelli even hit 10 homers for the limited time he played. The Sox finished with Youk, Roberts, Reese and Mankiewicz as reserves.

Now when the Sox need to rest Lugo or Pedroia they have Cora. What has he done the past 2.5 months?

When Tek needs a night off they can turn to Mirabelli. Ugh.

When an outfielder needs a night off they can go to Pena or Hinske and both of them are liabilities in the field and at the plate.

How come there is no depth at the AAA club? This was a problem last year as well as in 2005.